Pressure Points should not be the technique you rely on to defend yourself. But the cherry on top of a technique that you have pressure tested to cover the type of attack in question.

Many times people learn striking on points in isolation and think thats it?

Yes sometimes that first hit may finish the encounter. But you must have the ability to flow onto the next defensive move until you can back off or get out of the situation.

On the TCM and cycle points theory, I don't have faith in it as you can pick any combination of points and work out a cycle to follow them. So infact this means that the whole practice of TCM cycles are a waist of time?

Don't take this as an attack on how someone trains pp's. But this is just MHO.

Is it so important to learn "How" to strike the point as oppossed to where the point is? What I mean is, Im already a proficient striker. Would it serve to simply learn the location of the points and there applications or would you recommend learning the process over?

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"When I let Go of who I am, I become who I might be." Lao Tzu

Points have angles and directions and applications. If you hit, you know how to hit. You may choose to hit with a fist or a knuckle or rub a point or rake down a point depending on what you want. You don't need to learn the process all over. You just need to learn what to do with pressure points.

There is debate over which is better- getting the kyusho right from the beginning or getting it after being a black belt. I had no choice. I had to wait until I passed my black belt class. I have mixed feelings about starting sooner. The advantage of being a black belt first is that you already know how to hit and you have control.

The other things about pressure points aside from angle direction and how to attack them, is what they will do and follow-ups. I suggest going to class. At my school, for example, we have a Kyusho class every Sunday morning for 2 hours and then 4 nights a week, there is a Kyusho 1/2 hr after the regular adult class.

You would be limited, and dangerous in your practice if you just took your black belt skills and a point chart and started trying to self instruct.

Limited yet dangerous. I understand the limitations of self teaching of course. Obviously I would need instruction in their application and follow ups as far as PP wise. However, you did say dangerous, and isnt that the goal? I would say that it would have to be, if it was done in a combat context.

_________________________
"When I let Go of who I am, I become who I might be." Lao Tzu

Oh I don't mind dangerous when you WANT to be and NEED to be... That is after all, the reason some of us study martial arts. I mean dangerous with your practice partner. Even to KO a practice partner deliberately, which is something we do, could leave the practice partner with nausea and headache for the rest of the day. Not a good thing.

Quote:. Occaisionally I need my PP fighting at work. I am not an LEO but I am a psychiatric nurse and there is always the possibility of being attacked by a patient, or needing to stop a fight, or more commonly, needing to take a patient under control who is cutting herself or punching a wall or overturning furniture in a rage. PP do help.

Roseanne,

In as much as you said "there is always the possibility of being attacked by a patient". That I can understand in a SD situation, but I fail to see how your study of PP techniques would be of benefit to a patient who was "cutting themselves or punching a wall"? Similarly with the patient "who is throwing furniture about"?

In the first two examples they are only hurting themselves and as such would probably be no danger to anyone else. So you then going in and creating even more pain for the poor sods would seem to be only adding to their sense of pleasure or excitement. If that is the intent then you would most likely be more effective with a Bull Whip, if no-one else is endangered why intervene at all?

In the third instance of "throwing furniture about", they would at a guess eventually get bored with doing so and stop of their own accord eventually, without any external assistance from a staff member. If as I suspect, the reason for you and your colleagues to become involved is to maintain or regain control, then surely that is not treatment per say. Given that control is the objective and not treatment, wouldn't the old 'lunatic asylum' method of 'keeping them doped up' be just as effective?

I very much doubt that the general public would be best pleased to find out that nursing staff (which on this side of the pond are paid out of the public purse) were attacking their patients in order to maintain control, instead of treating those patients.

I'm not in any way being obstreperous in saying this, but an explanation would be most appreciated.

Because this is a public attack, I kind of need to defend myself publicly. If you have further reply, take it to private mail. I have never harmed a person with pressure point control methods. I have used control techniques to take a person from a situation where they were at high risk of actual or immenent risk, to a position of safety. When the furtniture was being thrown, my co-worker was barricaided against a wall with sharp edges of furnitures all around him and he couldn't get out without the assistance of another person. He got one side and I got the other so that we could navigate to safety. The patient had NO injuries, and neither did my coworker. I take that back. The patient had blood on the wall- hers- and we stopped the self injury. While I have never inflicted an injury on a patient, I have 2 weeks of light duty still ahead of me because on New Years' Eve, my nose was broken by a patient who was trying to kill me. I was fighting like a health care worker, doing everything I could to take control without causing injury. The patient was seen by a doctor immediately after the episode. There was no injury. I had to wait hours for relief before I could see a doctor. You jump to conclusions and make accusations without knowing about my work situation, or about the gamut of uses for pressure points in the less lethal end of the spectrum.

For this and other reasons, I am locking this thread. This forum is dead has stretched into 6 pages. It has strayed over many topics. Its title gives no clue to what is covered. Discussions would better be opened as new topics. The thread serves no current purpose. I'll take your rebuttal in PM.